Because of the paucity of documentation, art historians have been hard-pressed to determine how many professional women artists were active during the 18th century and particularly, in England. Recent scholarship has determined that this is a self-portrait, the only painting we know to still exist, by the recorded artist Mary Grace, née Hodgkiss. Born in Dublin, the daughter of a shoemaker, she made her way to London, probably with the assistance of Stephen Slaughter, the Surveyor of the King’s Pictures from 1745 to 1765. She apparently trained with him and actively exhibited paintings with a range of subjects, including somewhat bawdy genre scenes, portraits, and even, ambitious history paintings. In fact, her version of Antiochus and Stratonice, exhibited in 1767, predates the better known versions shown by Benjamin West in 1772 and Jacques-Louis David in 1774.

As we know that the artist died in 1799 or 1800, and the sitter seems to be in her late twenties or early thirties, it seems plausible to assume that it was painted in the 1760s, when she was already known for her ambitious history painting subjects. She holds the attributes of her profession and has positioned herself at an easel, now barely discernible in the background as the colors have sunken in tonality over time. The artist turns her gaze mildly toward us, which, as most self-portraiture suggests, would be where she herself would have been positioned before a mirror to accomplish her own likeness. It is tantalizing to contemplate the question of just how many paintings produced by Grace are awaiting rediscovery.